The Time reporter assigned to the trial leaned in to the descriptors, painting a vivid portrait of the high-profile spy case. The magazine’s editors eventually landed on the suitably sensationalistic headline, “ESPIONAGE: Pudgy Finger Points.” The article opens on a description of the “fat, mustached, 37-year-old man,” whose “hefty form occupied the government witness stand,” as his titular pudgy finger points toward William Fisher, the “expressionless, bird-faced man on trial for his life.”
Reino Häyhänen painted his own picture from the stand, recounting the story of how the two met. It began with a thumbtack, stuck to a Central Park signpost, not long after he arrived in the U.S. aboard the RMS Queen Mary. He had spent several years transitioning to the name Eugene Nikolai Maki -- an alias borrowed from a Finnish-American who’d long ago emigrated to Estonia with his family.
Now settled in New York with the codename VIK, the newly-minted Maki established a presence in the city, six months of which he spent returning to his thumbtack, to no avail. Though unable to establish contact with his fellow Soviet spy, Häyhänen remained afloat courtesy of money acquired from his superiors through dead letter drop boxes sprinkled across the city.
It was at one such location he discovered the nickel.
It was a peculiar bit of American currency. On the front, the third president was pictured in familiar profile, crafted in copper-nickel and stamped “1948” – precisely a decade after German-American sculptor Felix Schlag’s designed first graced the coin. The opposite side was cast in copper-silver – an alloy the United States Mint had abandoned three year prior to the date on the obverse.
Not long after discovering the nickel, Häyhänen exchanged it, either for a subway token or newspaper -- no one can say precisely which. For seven months, it changed hands, circulating around the city during which time Häyhänen and Fisher finally established contact. Fisher, living under the borrowed name, Rudolf Abel, had been assigned the codename “Mark.” Posing as a painter, he had narrowly escaped discovery during the arrest and subsequent execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
Fisher would establish himself as a good – if overly conventional – painter, while Häyhänen proved a poor assistant, as a heavy drinker with an explosive temper. The pressure of operating as a Soviet spy in New York City ground Fisher down in subsequent years. As he returned Russia for a brief respite, Häyhänen was tasked with running the operation. Largely spending the money collected at dead drops on sex workers and booze, his time in charge undermined much of Fisher’s previous work.
On a Monday night in 1953, a 13-year-old Brooklyn Eagle paperboy began his collection rounds at a building in East Flatbush. Greeting him at the door, a customer walked back into her apartment to grab her purse. She didn’t have enough coins to pay what was due. “Sorry, Jimmy,” she apologized. “I don’t have any change. Can you break this dollar bill for me?”
Knocking on the door across the hall, two woman answered, subsequently collecting enough change to break the dollar. Among the coins was a strange nickel. It made a peculiar sound, clanging against the rest of the change in his hand. He placed it on his middle finger, noting that it weighed considerably less than the others, before it slipped from his grip and dropped to the ground. Upon striking the floor, the nickel split in two, exposing a small scroll of paper inside.
He recounted the story to a classmate, who told her New York City detective father. Retrieving the coin from the boy, he handed it off to the FBI. For four years the agency attempted to decipher the 207 digits printed on the microphotograph inside.
Eventually returning to work, Fisher delivered a scathing rebuke of his fellow operative. The agency relieved Häyhänen of his role, demanding he return to Russia. Fearing the worst, he told his employer that the FBI had taken him into custody on the RMS Queen Mary on the return trip home. After retrieving $5,000 from a drop point in Hudson Valley’s Bear Mountain State Park, Häyhänen arrived at the U.S. embassy in Paris, once again visibly drunk.
He was finally able to convince CIA officials of his identity after retrieving a similarly hollow Finnish 5-mark coin. On being returned to the U.S., he helped the FBI crack the code found inside the hollow nickel. It wasn’t the breakthrough the agency had been banking on for the last few years. Instead, it was a greeting from the KBG to Fisher on his arrival in the enemy country,
1. WE CONGRATULATE YOU ON A SAFE ARRIVAL. WE CONFIRM THE RECEIPT OF YOUR LETTER TO THE ADDRESS `V REPEAT V' AND THE READING OF LETTER NUMBER 1.
2. FOR ORGANIZATION OF COVER, WE GAVE INSTRUCTIONS TO TRANSMIT TO YOU THREE THOUSAND IN LOCAL (CURRENCY). CONSULT WITH US PRIOR TO INVESTING IT IN ANY KIND OF BUSINESS, ADVISING THE CHARACTER OF THIS BUSINESS.
3. ACCORDING TO YOUR REQUEST, WE WILL TRANSMIT THE FORMULA FOR THE PREPARATION OF SOFT FILM AND NEWS SEPARATELY, TOGETHER WITH (YOUR) MOTHER'S LETTER.
4. IT IS TOO EARLY TO SEND YOU THE GAMMAS. ENCIPHER SHORT LETTERS, BUT THE LONGER ONES MAKE WITH INSERTIONS. ALL THE DATA ABOUT YOURSELF, PLACE OF WORK, ADDRESS, ETC., MUST NOT BE TRANSMITTED IN ONE CIPHER MESSAGE. TRANSMIT INSERTIONS SEPARATELY.
5. THE PACKAGE WAS DELIVERED TO YOUR WIFE PERSONALLY. EVERYTHING IS ALL RIGHT WITH THE FAMILY. WE WISH YOU SUCCESS. GREETINGS FROM THE COMRADES. NUMBER 1, 3RD OF DECEMBER.
While the paper offered little in the way of incriminating evidence, Häyhänen happily led the FBI to hotel room where Fisher was holed up. Inside, they discovered a slew of spy paraphernalia, before promptly arresting the man. He was indicted on three accounts in October 1957. “He is the highest ranking Soviet agent ever caught in the United States,” The New York Times noted in a story about Fisher’s lawyers attempting to reverse the charges over a unconstitutional search and seizure.
Sentenced to 30 years in prison, his term was cut short, as he was exchanged for a captured U.S. pilot on the Bridge of Spies. The bird-faced Mark lived out the remainder of his days giving lectures in the Soviet Union.
His fat, mustached former colleague, meanwhile, avoided prosecution. The CIA relocated him to New Hampshire, where he died in a car crash believed by some to have been orchestrated by his former employers.
Sources:
ESPIONAGE: Pudgy Finger Points https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,810029,00.html
Hollow Nickel/Rudolf Abel https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/hollow-nickel-rudolph-abel
Spy in High Court Plea https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1959/02/25/80763264.html?pageNumber=12
Rudolf Abel: The Soviet spy who grew up in England https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-tyne-34870934